History of the Baháʼí Faith

As one of the followers of the Báb, Baháʼu'lláh was imprisoned during a subsequent wave of massacre by the Persian government against Bábís in 1852, was exiled to Iraq, and then to Constantinople and Adrianople in the Ottoman Empire.

[1] Amidst these banishments, in 1863 in Baghdad, Baháʼu'lláh claimed to be the messianic figure expected by the Báb's writings, and the majority of Bábís eventually converted to become known as Baháʼís.

During Shoghi Effendi's time as leader of the religion there was a great increase in the number of Baháʼís, and he presided over the election of many National Spiritual Assemblies.

[4][5][6] In Islam, the Mahdi is a messianic figure who is believed to be a descendant of Muhammad who will return near the end of time to restore the world and the religion of God.

[8] The Shaykhi movement was a school of theology within Twelver Shiʻa Islam that was started through the teaching of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsá'í.

Siyyid Kázim formulated many of the thoughts that were ambiguously expressed by Shaykh Ahmad including the doctrine of salvation history and the cycles of revelation.

[11][12] In May 1844 the Báb proclaimed to Mulla Husayn, one of the Shaykhis, to be the one whose coming was prophesied by Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim and the bearer of divine knowledge.

The first accounts in the West of events related to the history of the Báb and his followers appears January 8, 1845, as an exchange of diplomatic reports not published in the newspapers.

[18] After some time, preaching by the Letters of the Living led to opposition by the Islamic clergy, prompting the Governor of Shiraz to order the Báb's arrest.

After being under house arrest in Shiraz from June 1845 to September 1846,[13] the Báb spent several months in Isfahan debating clergy, many of whom became sympathetic.

A trusted advisor to the Shah, Vahid had been sent to interrogate the Báb on behalf of the king, who wished to secure reliable firsthand information about the movement that was sweeping his land.

During the Báb’s incarceration in the fortress of Maku in the province of Azarbaijan close to the Turkish border, he began his most important work, the Persian Bayán, which he never finished.

[22] In mid-1850 a new prime minister, Amir Kabir,[23] ordered the execution of the Báb, probably because various Bábí insurrections had been defeated and the movement's popularity appeared to be waning.

[13] After the order was given to shoot and the smoke cleared, the Báb was no longer in the courtyard and Anis stood there unharmed; the bullets apparently had not harmed either man, but had cut the rope suspending them from the wall.

Over time the remains were secretly transported by way of Isfahan, Kermanshah, Baghdad and Damascus, to Beirut and thence by sea to Acre, Israel on the plain below Mount Carmel in 1899.

[24] In 1909, the remains were finally interred in a special tomb, erected for this purpose by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land in Haifa, Israel.

[29] Baháʼu'lláh in the meantime, while in private hinted at his own high station, in public kept his messianic secret from most and supported Ṣubḥ-i-Azal in the interest of unity.

[citation needed] Their meetings appear to have come under the control of a "Husayn Jan", an emotive and magnetic figure who obtained a high degree of personal devotion to himself from the group.

An increasing number of Bábís considered Baghdad the new centre for leadership of the Bábí religion, and a flow of pilgrims started coming there from Persia.

Some of these leaders written to in the coming years include Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III of France, Czar Alexander II of Russia, Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland, Násiriʼd-Dín Sháh of the Persian Empire and the rulers of America.

Mirzá Mihdí, Baháʼu'lláh's son, was suddenly killed at the age of twenty-two when he fell through a skylight while pacing back and forth in prayer and meditation.

After some time, the people and officials began to trust and respect Baháʼu'lláh, and thus the conditions of the imprisonment were eased and eventually, after Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz's death, he was allowed to leave the city and visit nearby places.

During his lifetime, communities of Baháʼís were established in Armenia, Burma, Egypt, Georgia, India, Lebanon, (what is now) Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Turkmenistan.

Following his release he led a life of travelling, speaking, teaching, and maintaining correspondence with communities of believers and individuals, expounding the principles of the Baháʼí Faith.

[37] That said, while Marie prayed "better at home with [Baháʼu'lláh's] books and teachings," she continued to attend a Protestant church[37] and her daughter denied that she ever converted.

[43] The Hands of the Cause, who had been appointed by Shoghi Effendi as "Stewards," took over as a collective leadership, continued the Ten Year Crusade, and organized the first election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963, making themselves ineligible for membership.

[39] All of these National Spiritual Assemblies participated in the election of the Universal House of Justice as envisioned in Shoghi Effendi's plan for the Ten Year Crusade.

[44][39] After the election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963, it then ruled that given the unique situation and the provisions of the Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, it was not possible to appoint another Guardian.

[45] The Universal House of Justice today remains the supreme governing body of the Baháʼí Faith, and its nine members are elected every five years.

[59] According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the Baháʼí Faith is the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity in terms of being present in the highest number of locations.